Joint statement on the Immigration White Paper's £30,000 salary threshold

RAMP Parliamentarians welcome reports that the Home Office could rethink the £30,000 immigration threshold planned for after Brexit:

“The White Paper’s proposed £30,000 threshold has always been a strange measure of what it means to be skilled. We remain concerned about its impact on both the economy and local integration.

The average salary in Cornwall is just under £20,000. In Cumbria it is just over £20,000. If set at £30,000 per annum, thousands of skilled, motivated migrants, especially if the jobs they wanted were outside London and the south-east, wouldn't meet this seemingly arbitrary threshold. Workers in agriculture, tourism and hospitality, care homes, creative arts and even nurses simply would not qualify.

Under this proposal, many communities outside of London would experience immigration almost exclusively in the churn of short-term worker visas, risking social cohesion and polarising attitudes towards migrants.

RAMP is working with the APPG on Migration to find better answers to the questions that the White Paper raises. We continue to call on the Home Secretary to think again.”

The group work together as part of the Resettlement, Asylum and Migration Policy project (RAMP), which seeks to re-imagine a world-class migration system for a successful and integrated Britain.